


learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss

by forsanethaec



Category: Social Network (2010)
Genre: Angst, Community: tsn_kinkmeme, Exhibitionism, Hotel Sex, M/M, Post-Depositions, Reconciliation Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-17
Updated: 2011-03-17
Packaged: 2017-11-06 16:45:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,733
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/421078
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/forsanethaec/pseuds/forsanethaec
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Mark receives intelligence that Eduardo hasn't left Palo Alto yet after the depositions and goes to his hotel to see what he can see.</p>
            </blockquote>





	learning to throw yourself at the ground and miss

**Author's Note:**

> For the kinkmeme TFLN prompt: hotel windowsill sex. Originally posted on LJ. For the record, this was the fic where RL Zuck appeared before me on CNN while I was writing the sex scene while at an airport. ...that's all.

Mark can blame Dustin for this. Yeah, that'll work. Dustin's the one who told Mark he saw Eduardo downtown today – told Mark that Eduardo's still in town, that he's staying at the Marriott, actually, if you want to know, which I'm sure you don't, Mark, not like you're going to go be a total creep or anything, right? And all this in an email. A  _work_  email, in which Mark can plainly hear Dustin's evil grin, subject line: "SPOTTED: E-SAV." Mark scowls and thinks Dustin is too cute for his own good sometimes and hails a cab to the hotel.   
  
It's not until he steps out onto the curb that he realizes where he is. He looks up and the building looms imperiously. Eduardo's in there somewhere, Mark thinks. Eduardo could have left town, but he didn't. He stayed, a twenty-minute drive from Mark.   
  
It's something to work with. Mark takes one step forward toward the doorman and stops again. He squints into the lobby and pictures Eduardo's face, the last time they saw each other – hurt and accusatory and somewhere beneath the surface (though Mark might have been imagining this) a last-ditch plea. Mark can't put a name on it besides that, but it felt open-ended enough, didn't it? It felt like an invitation. He misses that face. He misses it doing anything. The past several months have contained too many of the longest times Mark's ever gone without seeing that familiar, reliable face.   
  
He's rationalizing and it's carried him to within doorman range. He thinks sourly,  _I've come this far_ , and he steps inside.  
  
It's all creamy marble and faceless passerby in clacking heels, and Mark walks straight through to the wooden bank of check-in desks and says to the receptionist, because television has taught him that this is how things work, "Can you connect me to a guest?"  
  
The receptionist purses her lips and blinks serenely up at him. "The name, please?"  
  
"Eduardo Saverin. Eduardo with a U." It feels funny to say, so matter-of-fact. This woman doesn't know anything. At least he assumes she doesn't. Actually, that's kind of comforting. It could just be their thing, his and Eduardo's, at the end of the day. It could be manageable. Salvageable.   
  
Mark frowns and realizes that the receptionist is saying something.   
  
"You can use the courtesy phone right over there, sir." She gestures. "It's connecting."  
  
He nods, and walks off. The phone feels like strangers' fingers in his palm, and it occurs to him that he has not planned a single word to say to Eduardo if and when Eduardo picks up.   
  
If. Maybe that would be better. Maybe this wasn't such a--  
  
"Hello?"  
  
Okay, then.  
  
"Wardo, um." Mark licks his lips. His mouth has gone dry. "It's Mark."  
  
Silence, then--  
  
"Yeah." Eduardo's voice is a cutting mix of bewildered and skeptical. Mark's not sure what he expected. But then again, Eduardo hasn't hung up, yet.  
  
In fact, it might be best to remove that possibility from the equation. Mark's fingers tighten a little against the phone and he edges the nail of his little finger against the seam of the beige plastic, just to keep his hold, and he says before any untoward developments can take place, "Can I come up?"  
  
Eduardo doesn't say anything, again. So he's making Mark work for it. That's just fine.  
  
"We should talk," Mark adds, feeling this in itself is already going above and beyond the line of phone duty. This is not a phone conversation. This is not even a hotel lobby in person conversation. This is a doors closed on the yellowish light of the hallway in the summer house in Palo Alto, Eduardo dripping and looking like hell, Mark making confessions around a piece of Twizzler conversation. He feels kind of like that was a lesson he learned from -- he'd like to think  _Wardo_ , but instead he thinks  _all of this_  -- even if he didn't learn to do it well.   
  
"Are you  _here_ ?" Eduardo says finally.  
  
"Oh." Dustin's goddamn fault. The creep thing was a self-fulfilling prophecy. "Yeah. I'm in the lobby."  
  
He hears a defeated, staticky sigh that he recognizes well, and then Eduardo says, "Alright, yeah. Come up. But Mark --" and the frustration is practically sweating out of the earpiece and Mark almost feels bad for doing this to him, for some reason, but it's going to be worth it, this is going to be it, it has to be, because he's come as far as the hotel lobby and there is obviously no turning back now.   
  
And he also realizes he hasn't heard Eduardo say his name in, well. A long enough time that he knows perfectly well how long but can't bear to think the precise number. The thought of that and the sound of it ringing in his ears make his stomach flutter a little, and he kicks himself mentally, listening to the uneven cadence of Eduardo's breathing on the other end of the line.   
  
Eduardo sighs again, short and abortive. "Just come up," he says, and maybe Mark is imagining it but it sounds just slightly less angry than five seconds ago. He has a manic sort of urge to smile. He fights it. Now, if ever, is surely the time for a game face.   
  
There's a little whoosh of silence that sounds like Eduardo's hanging up before he comes back -- almost but not quite before Mark has time to feel a surge of panic that he isn't going to get actual details -- and adds, "Actually, the elevator needs a room key. I guess I'll come get you."  
  
Then a click. Mark sets the phone down gingerly and glances instinctively at the receptionist. She's not looking. He turns to survey the lobby and locates a large planter that would probably be a good strategic location for some hovering. Unsure why he feels like he's breaking and entering, he slouches purposefully over to it and commences with the casual standing, watching the elevators.   
  
He sees one stop at floor 15 and then begin to descend and decides that it must be Eduardo because if it's not then he's going to be caught off-guard and that isn't going to be fun for anyone. The numbers above the elevator doors, blinking steadily downward, feel like a countdown to the firing squad. Mark sticks a hand in his hoodie pocket and fingers the wide, shiny leaf of one of the plants in the pot. Fake. He's not surprised.  
  
Eduardo gets out of the elevator and Mark straightens up automatically, like his date has just answered the door before prom or something equally stupid.   
  
"Hey," he says, half-frowning. He's trying to shut out the way his heart has started pounding. He's trying not to think about how right it feels to see Eduardo again up close, without a table and a water pitcher between them. He's trying to ignore the way the shadows beneath Eduardo's eyes haven't lightened.   
  
All this  _not_  thinking has afforded them a few long seconds of just staring at each other, before Eduardo does that  _thing_  he does when he's giving in, that little lip bite. Mark keeps his eyes locked on Eduardo's as though his life depends on it.   
  
"Come on, then," Eduardo says finally, kind of soft, like now that Mark's here in front of him he's conceded that this is going to be more than ten forcibly curt words exchanged over the phone in the lobby of the Palo Alto Marriott.  
  
Mark follows him into the elevator and watches him dip his keycard in and out of the slot before pressing the button for the fifteenth floor. Mark has got both hands in his hoodie pockets now, and he stands parallel to the doors, looking at a spot between his feet and the card slot. He glances up for just a second as they pass the sixth floor. Eduardo's leaning against the elevator's rails in the opposite corner, just looking at Mark, sort of appraisingly and just a little bit like it's simply the first time he's really  _seen_  him in forever, which it is, which Mark was just thinking about.   
  
Mark doesn't look away again until at least the tenth floor. Possibly the eleventh. He thinks again,  _Dustin's fault_ , and the elevator doors slide open.   
  
He follows Eduardo at a short distance down the hall and around a corner to the door marked 1524. Eduardo stops with one hand holding his keycard at the lip of the slot and the other on the door handle; Mark sees him close his eyes, and wonders if he isn't about to be shit out of luck, but then Eduardo gives a tiny shake of his head and unlocks the door.  
  
Mark steps in after him, crosses the little foyer in three steps. Eduardo turns the lights on and stops when he gets to the far corner of the bed. He turns. Mark has stopped at the near corner, facing him. He pinches his fingers against the seam of his jeans to stop himself putting his hand in his hoodie pocket for the umpteenth time.  
  
"Well?" Eduardo says finally, and Mark can tell me meant it to come out aggressive but it comes out pained and it makes Mark's chest hurt, a lot. He wants to take a step forward but doesn't want to watch Eduardo take a step back.   
  
He opens his mouth to say something that he still hasn't planned even after all this time, and notices as he does so that the room's got that subtle undertone of cologne that always followed Eduardo everywhere. Mark nearly wants to smile again. It only takes about one second for the smell to become so familiar again that he stops noticing it.   
  
He takes a deep breath – the whole room is like that, Wardo, Wardo, Wardo – and then, feeling inspired, he takes his other hand out of his hoodie pocket (that makes two hands out of two not in hoodie pockets, he wants it noted for the record) and takes the step forward. Eduardo doesn't move. He looks like he's frozen, except for the way he's keening toward Mark just the tiniest bit, his chin lifting in that defensive, tense Eduardo manner.   
  
Mark takes another step and skims a hand along the bedspread. "I'm glad I caught you before you left," he says, though the room shows no sign of packing or of any sort of preparations to go anywhere. "I didn't want—" He takes a breath. Eduardo's face is legitimately stricken now, his eyes wide in that way of his, and God, Mark knows Eduardo knows that's the fastest way to make Mark make a fool of himself and it is really not fair.   
  
"I was stupid," Mark says finally, low and flat, and he averts his eyes to the corner of the windowsill because he can feel his face coloring and he is mortified and terrified but if he doesn't get this out now it's never going to happen. "It wasn't worth…you."  
  
"Me?" Eduardo says, sounding torn between anger and genuine surprise.   
  
"It wasn't worth not having you to have what – what made me not have you." Mark shakes his head slightly, a little jerk to the right, a frown. "I don't know what I'm saying," he says, looking up finally, looking into Eduardo's face. "Do you know what I'm saying?"  
  
"I'm not sure," Eduardo says. There's very nearly laughter there and Mark can't help but feel the relief start to trickle through him, hesitant and wonderful. "Do you think a normal person would call it an apology?"  
  
"They might." The corner of Mark's mouth twitches, and Eduardo takes a step forward. Mark feels like they're doing one of those slow motion reunion scenes like in a movie, running through a field of sunflowers toward each other, the violins swelling and the sun flaring off the camera lens.   
  
Eduardo's brow is knitting and he rubs his eyes with the heels of his hands. "It makes me so tired, being like this," he says, as though he's talking to himself, and he does sound tired. He sounds exhausted.   
  
Mark wants to hold him around the shoulders. He wants Eduardo to fall asleep against his chest. He's never wanted anything like that so much before in his life.  
  
"I used to think that being with you was the most tiring thing I could do," Eduardo says now, and he looks up, right into Mark's face, his eyes heavy and intense. "But I was wrong."  
  
Mark opens his mouth, wanting to say something about how they shouldn't hate each other – how it's just not natural, about how it would be so easy for them to go back to normal, wouldn't it, if they'd just give it a try and not think too hard about it. But he has no idea how to really put that into words that he would be able to speak aloud, and anyway it absolutely does not matter in the slightest anymore because now Eduardo's finally smiling just a little, wistful, almost, and he's saying, "You know I've been in love with you since freshman year, right?"  
  
Mark licks his lips, opens his mouth, closes it again. Eduardo laughs and it's only half mirthless. "Hey, I figured it's all or nothing, here," he says, and then he does this little thing that's perfectly Eduardo and perfectly life-ending where he looks down and then back up at Mark, through his lashes, beneath sleepless eyelids.   
  
Mark takes another step forward. It's stopped being the reunion with the sunflowers and has started to be the slow, inevitable prelude to a kiss in a low-lit room, which Mark supposes detachedly is precisely what it is, except for the lights are on all the way.   
  
And then Eduardo's closed the distance between them to just lean his forehead against Mark's shoulder, like he's too drained to stay upright anymore. Mark's hands are on his back before he can think about it. He's never wanted so automatically just to touch someone, but right now he can't imagine doing anything else.  
  
"God," Eduardo says shakily, and he pulls back to look into Mark's face, close and inquisitive. Mark is holding his breath.  
  
"This doesn't make us alright," Eduardo says after a moment of staring, instructive, like he's just letting him know, and Mark would be nodding frantically if he wasn't so fucking petrified, and then Eduardo saves him the trouble and kisses him.  
  
"Wardo," Mark says against Eduardo's lips, his hands are still at Eduardo's back and Eduardo's hands have come around Mark's sides and then his fingers are at the nape of Mark's neck and Mark's head is spinning, he doesn't even know if he'd expected this or if he'd even wanted it – though that's ridiculous, of course, he'd always wanted it, he'd wanted it every minute of every day and more often than that during the past several months. It's surprising how easy it is to admit now that it's really happening.   
  
But still, somehow—Eduardo's mouth is earnest against his, his fingers moving gently through Mark's hair and the space below his ribs, and then the kiss is turning desperate and Mark thinks all of a sudden that it's just a band-aid and that is not what he came for. He can feel the near-unhappiness in Eduardo's face by the tension in his cheek where it keeps meeting Mark's whenever he tips his head a certain way.   
  
He's about to put more concerted effort into one momentary thing than he ever has before, but Eduardo gets there first; he turns his face to the side immediately when he pulls away, eyes downcast, breathing hard even though they were just kissing like normal people, nothing crazy, except it was crazy, and it wasn't normal, nothing about them ever really was and it certainly won't be again. Mark feels himself frowning slightly, concerned.   
  
"Jesus," Eduardo says, seemingly more to himself than to Mark, and then he looks up. Something's returned to his face that he'd lost between the elevator and the hotel room – his guard, maybe, or just a shaky sense of self-preservation. "I—I'm not sure," he runs a hand through his hair and Mark's eyes follow the motion, the carding of his fingers, wishing it was him doing that to Wardo instead.   
  
"I think that might have been a mistake," Eduardo finishes, sounding agitated, confused. Or that could be Mark projecting.  
  
"Wardo, you know I—" Mark flounders, then says, stilted and awkward, "I want this to be fixed."  
  
Eduardo's shaking his head. He looks up, his eyes dead on Mark, heavy and straight.   
  
"I meant what I said," he says levelly. His voice is quiet but it reverberates in the thick air. "That just—might not have been the best idea."  
  
Mark doesn't know what to say. He doesn't exactly disagree, but it's all so bipolar that it's giving him whiplash trying to keep up. He's not sure where this leaves them and that scares him a little. He doesn't like to feel out of control – like he might walk out the door and that could be it, or not, it could be anything, and he would have no idea, he wouldn't know anything at all.   
  
Eduardo's still shaking his head. Mark gets the sense that he doesn't want to focus on this situation in all its unavoidable stillness in front of him.   
  
"I can go," Mark says finally. The words ache leaving him.   
  
Eduardo squeezes his eyes shut. "It's not—" he sighs, shaky, and sits down on the bed, looking up at Mark, the same thin, anxious figure he'd presented in Kirkland so many times and God, Mark can barely look at him and think of where they've been since then.   
  
"Yeah," Eduardo says at last, hoarse and final.   
  
Mark turns. It's a short distance to the door, the carpet padding soft beneath his feet, and he feels Eduardo's presence at his back like it's sitting on his shoulders.  
  
When he has a hand on the door handle he turns and says, because this can't be  _it_ , he won't allow it: "Please don't leave town." He bites his tongue momentarily to keep from saying anything else more embarrassing, and when he trusts himself he adds, "Not yet."  
  
Eduardo nods, and Mark goes.  
  
He hasn't gotten farther than the lobby when his phone buzzes.  
  
His little smile at the name is nearly automatic. He had barely realized he still had Eduardo's number.  
  
The message is short and makes Mark feel ten times lighter, for some reason:  
  
 _just give me some time to parse, yeah._  
  
Parse.   
  
He texts back,  _yeah_ , and steps outside.  
  
***  
  
Dustin, bless his aggravating little soul, wants a full debrief.   
  
"I dunno," Mark says for probably the fifth time. He really wants to put this conversation out of its misery. "We talked. Nothing – there's nothing really new."  
  
"I bet he was  _overjoyed_  to see you," Dustin says, kicking up a heel and clasping his hands to his cheek.   
  
"Oh, yeah," Mark says flatly. "I'm going now."  
  
"Well, keep me posted!" Dustin says cheerily. Mark turns to go, and Dustin adds, "No, but really." Mark turns back to see Dustin looking the tiniest bit sheepish. "You know, it's weird to think he might never be around again." He pauses dubiously. "It always just sort of seemed like there was no way it wouldn't get worked out."  
  
Mark's just staring, and Dustin adds, "I mean, it's  _Wardo_ ."  
  
 _And isn't that kind of the fucking problem?_  Mark wants to reply waspishly, but he thinks that might be bordering on too much disclosure. He shrugs, and leaves Dustin to whatever it is that Dustin does all day. Mark's hardly sure anymore – things are big now, and complicated, and such a long way from "NewCo" and drunk coding competitions and Dustin wincing about the zipline into the pool. And Wardo – and anything to do with Wardo, really.   
  
Mark's smiling as he goes back to sit in his office, all his now, large and in charge and whatnot, but only because he supposes he ought to, not because he's happy to think about how things used to be.   
  
***  
  
He's jittery for the next few days and it's only when he gets a text from Eduardo that he realizes he's been counting hours.  
  
 _still at the hotel, come if you still want. we can talk._  
  
Mark reads it three times, frowning, his mouth to one side. His fingers hesitate over the keys of his phone, T9, after all this time, he can't break the habit.  
  
Finally, he writes,  _tonight?_  like they're just scheduling dinner in the dining hall or something. God, it's getting late, somehow, for this kind of thing. First kisses and making up. Mark wonders if he'd given up on it.   
  
He doesn't think so, though, as he finds himself in the hotel lobby again. This is not a situation he'd ever have found himself in in a world where he'd given up.   
  
He texts him this time – the lobby phone had been unnecessary in hindsight, obviously, but he honestly hadn't remembered that calling Wardo on his own phone was an option – and they have another silent elevator ride with flickering glances and the ghosts of sad smiles. The hallway feels over-soft and antiseptic around the heartfelt set of Eduardo's shoulders as Mark follows him to the door of his room.   
  
They get inside and Eduardo throws the deadbolt. Mark feels stiff; he faces Eduardo in the doorframe between the foyer and the main room, waiting either for Eduardo to make a move or, barring that, for Mark's brain to just cause him to do something unplanned and random and probably wholly inappropriate in a way that might or might not turn out to be constructive.   
  
Luckily it doesn't come to that, because Eduardo steps right up to him, looks him full in the face and says, "What if we try this again."  
  
Mark is pretty sure he knows what  _this_  is, but he'd like to hear Eduardo say it, so he just stares at him.  
  
Eduardo purses his lips. "I've just—" he's staring at the floor now and Mark gets the impression that he wouldn't be able to get this out if he was looking right at Mark. He can feel his pulse jumping in his neck. He breathes through his nose.  
  
"I've missed you, a lot," Eduardo says to Mark's sandals. "And I think—if we give this a shot, things might be able to—"  
  
He stops and looks up then, nearly pleading, and Mark's heart is thumping erratic and crazy way up into his throat as he meets Eduardo's eyes.   
  
Eduardo's got a desperate kind of  _don't make me finish that sentence_  look on his face and it's really starting to cause Mark physical pain, and so Mark relents. He thinks he might be having a heart attack. He doesn't really care.  
  
"Yeah," he says, and he steps forward and puts a hand on Eduardo's shoulder where it curves tense up into his neck. "Okay." Wardo's got a hand on his waist now like they're going to waltz. Mark says again, "Yeah," and then they're kissing, and it only takes them about three seconds to stumble, Mark tripping backwards over his flip-flops, into the corner of the room beside the doorframe.   
  
They're wrapped together now, unabashedly scrambling for a tighter closeness, more contact, it's not like they're really moving or anything but Mark feels like he just needs to be  _with_  as much of Eduardo as possible. Maybe they're making up for lost time. Mark's done trying to come up with explanations, because it's so much more solid than the first time, more committed and so much less likely to crumble into silent departures.  
  
Mark's heard it said that he's not a hugger, but as long as he doesn't consider this to be hugging he feels pretty certain he'd like to keep doing it forever.   
  
Eduardo pulls back just enough to slip his hands between their chests and slide the zipper of Mark's hoodie down, slow. His eyes flick up to Mark's and it's as though he's looking for something there. Mark wants him to find it. He doesn't blink and he hopes that'll be enough.  
  
Eduardo steps back then and walks without a word into the main room, lit soft and yellow. He unbuttons his shirt and tosses it on the bed. He's watching Mark, waiting. Mark shrugs off his hoodie and walks to Eduardo, feeling like he's treading on thin ice, the frozen Charles and a Harvard winter and he closes his eyes for a moment. Sometimes it's hard to look at Eduardo, he brings so many memories to the surface.  
  
"Mark," Eduardo says quietly, and Mark's eyes snap open. Eduardo reaches out and takes him by the shoulders and turns him around, and he kisses him again, into the wall, again, the plaster space beside the desk. It's spring outside and the window is half open beside them, and Mark tugs his t-shirt over his head and feels the breeze raise goosebumps on his stomach. Eduardo skims his hand over the skin there and Mark shivers and it has nothing to do with the temperature.  
  
Eduardo pushes him down against the recessed windowsill then, so he's sitting, looking up into Eduardo's studious face, his eyes, dark and tremulous. And then Eduardo drops to his knees.  
  
"Wardo," says Mark, a little nervously and so thick with lust he surprises even himself. He wants to see Eduardo smile, even if it's a mean kind of smile, even if it doesn't reach his eyes, but Eduardo is busy with his fly.   
  
He palms Mark's cock through his boxers and Mark draws in a sharp breath through his teeth, finds the edge of the window with his palms and grips his fingers against it, trying to anchor himself, and Eduardo is still—not even stroking, just  _rubbing_ , his long fingers solid and hot against Mark and Mark gets hard so fast it's like he's seventeen again. His fingers are cutting against the edge of the window and he can feel the rough concrete outside in the night air.   
  
Eduardo leans in and places an experimental kiss against the line of Mark's cock, draws his nose against it, eyes closed, and then he looks up at Mark through his lashes and Mark scrambles to push up from the ledge so that Eduardo can tug his boxers down and lick flat up his cock and Mark's body is trembling wildly, and Eduardo sucks the head of Mark's cock into his mouth and Mark's mind goes blank.   
  
Eduardo's palms are hot against Mark's thighs as he slides his lips down and sucks, hard, and Mark feels himself slipping and he braces against the open window to spread his thighs wider, knowing he must look ridiculous and absolutely not caring. Eduardo tucks a hand between Mark's legs, curling three fingers beneath his balls and then pushing one farther back and farther until—  
  
Mark yelps and his hips buck and Eduardo makes a little noise, not a moan exactly but still enough that Mark feels it vibrate through him, and Eduardo's lips pop off him, shining wet and obscenely gorgeous.   
  
"Will you fuck me?" he asks, low and hoarse, and that is the sound of Mark's brain exploding in his skull. He nods, a little frantic. He'll do anything.   
  
Eduardo stands, wincing slightly as his knees straighten, and Mark sees his erection straining in his pants and reaches out a hand to stop him turning away to whatever Mark-fucking-him-related task he was about to go and do. Eduardo stops, and Mark stands and steps out of his boxers and kisses him, tasting himself on Eduardo's tongue, trying to communicate somehow, feeling like this is the only chance he'll get. He presses himself full against Eduardo and nudges his thighs apart with a knee and arches, the fabric against his bare skin rough and wild.   
  
Eduardo groans and tips his head into the crook of Mark's shoulder and bucks forward to meet him and they stand like that for a moment, clutching, moving jerkily together before Eduardo pulls back, a little stumble in his step, looking at Mark as if to say,  _just wait_ .   
  
He's gotten out a condom and a packet of lube before Mark has even tuned back into the situation. He's standing naked in the middle of the room and it's only just occurred to him to be embarrassed when Eduardo turns back and cocks an eyebrow.  
  
"Sit," he says, pointing to the windowsill again, and there,  _there_  is the smile Mark's been waiting for, just a little one, bemused, like he can't quite help it. Mark grins and feels himself flush and doesn't care. He doesn't want Wardo to think he's not taking this seriously or anything, because he is, maybe too much so, assigning such weight to it that it feels life or death. But at the same time – he's just so happy to be with Eduardo again, and like this, of all the ways. He tries to remind himself that this should be a tentative feeling – that he shouldn’t count on anything, should do Wardo the courtesy of not assuming this is just going to be a magic bullet. He remembers last time:  _This doesn't make us alright._  
  
But it could be a start. He's managed to sit again, by this time, somehow, though he isn't very aware of his feet. Eduardo's shucking his pants and his briefs too and then without preamble he straddles Mark's thighs.   
  
Mark looks into his face, studying it for signs, but Eduardo isn't giving much away. He sets the condom on the windowsill next to Mark and tears open the packet of lube and spreads some on his fingers, and he reaches behind himself a little unsteadily and Mark raises his hands to hold Eduardo around the ribs, solid and reassuring. Eduardo closes his eyes for a second, a flicker of something across his face. It makes Mark's throat tighten a little.  
  
"Wardo," he says, softer than he'd realized he could speak. Eduardo looks at him and Mark puts a hand on his jawline and kisses him, on the corner of his mouth half by accident first and then full on the lips, slipping his tongue between them slowly. He bites Wardo's lower lip just enough to leave a little red mark, not because he's trying to be rough or anything but because he wants Wardo to know, really know, that Mark is here.  
  
When they pull apart Eduardo sets back about the task of fucking himself open and Mark watches, breathing shallow and choked as he watches the trembling rise and fall of Eduardo's chest, the little quivers of his hips, his erection bobbing heavy between them. Mark wants to fist his own cock against it and twist his hand and watch the way Eduardo would shudder and moan, but he doesn't want to interrupt what's unfolding in front of him and he doesn't want to delay what's coming next.   
  
And soon enough Eduardo's pulled his hand away, really shaking now, and Mark doesn't know how to make him stop so he picks up the condom and tears it open and rolls it onto himself, trying to say somehow that it's okay, and that he wants Eduardo enough that – that he wants him so much, that –  
  
But he can't find words for any of it. But also it doesn't matter, because Eduardo's sitting up, squaring his knees on either side of Mark's thighs and gripping him on the shoulder with one hand and guiding Mark's cock into himself.   
  
Eduardo breathes out a little  _ha_  as he settles back down, and Mark feels the fingers on his shoulders tighten, somewhere, buried under miles of acute, hot tightness, a haze around his vision, his throat catching on a sound, anything, Eduardo's name, a moan. His hands come up to the sharp peaks of Eduardo's shoulderblades and he pulls him in, and Eduardo's rolling his hips now, lifting and falling, forehead tipped into the crook of Mark's shoulder. Mark can hear his breathing, high and whining, feel it puffing against his chest.   
  
He puts his mouth to the shell of Eduardo's ear and tries at once to concentrate completely on how fucking incredibly good this feels and also on how, even more than that, it's  _Eduardo_ , it really, really is.  
  
Eduardo throws his head back for a moment and Mark bites at the column of his throat, the hollow between his collarbones, leaving the skin red and wet. Eduardo moans. His hands have come up to tangle in Mark's hair at the nape of his neck, and then he presses one to the glass behind them.   
  
"Do you think people can see us?" he asks, voice huffing around the words as he rides Mark's cock.   
  
Mark looks at Eduardo staring out the window and he wants to put his lips around Eduardo's earlobe and bring him back here, wants to grab him by the hips so hard it hurts and really fuck him. He wants to say,  _let them see_ . He can't let Eduardo drift from this so easily. It makes him nervous to think it could somehow end here.  
  
He feels the cool hardness of glass against his shoulderblades and wonders how he got that far into his own head. He thinks about an answer Eduardo's question, though it's a little difficult to do while Eduardo keeps rolling his hips in that way that takes Mark in all the way, that makes him feel blissed out and wild, makes him want to do crazy things.  
  
And finally, all Mark's got is, "Maybe. We're on the fifteenth floor."   
  
Eduardo laughs out loud, a little shudder all the way through him, filling Mark up. Mark snakes his hand between them and wraps it around Eduardo's cock because he wants to, starts stroking it hard and fast and Eduardo's laugh turns into a moan and then Mark's name. He's bouncing in earnest now, pushing into Mark's hand and up and down his cock over and over again, skin slapping and the breeze from outside in bright gusts between them, husky and cool, so that Mark's slipping between high alertness and a muzzy delirium.   
  
He says, "Eduardo, come on," and Wardo's shaking his head like he can't, he  _can't_  and Mark catches his lips with his own, not half as sloppy as it could be, willing and strong and Eduardo gives a little cry into Mark's mouth and comes, all over Mark's knuckles and onto Mark's stomach, slowing, his lips slipping down the side of Mark's mouth as he rides it out.  
  
Mark bites down on a thick groan, because the feel of Eduardo is shocking and consuming and lots of other dramatic words no self-respecting computer science major has ever used aloud in their life. And Mark doesn't know if it's the sudden blooming feeling of wonderful ridiculousness that makes him come then, shuddering, one hand tangled in Eduardo's hair, or if it's the little breath Eduardo lets out, the way he closes his eyes, and the way he turns his face into Mark's neck.   
  
They're breathing, and slowly letting their grips on one another slacken, though neither is letting go entirely. Then comes the feeling of the hard discomfort of the windowsill and the glass, the realization of the presence of the rest of the empty room and its implications. Mark feels like he's walking in on himself and he knows that under normal circumstances he might be getting tense again, but it's a little tough at this particular moment, still inside Eduardo, still covered by Eduardo's sighing body, still surrounded completely by everything Wardo in a way he's always wished he could have.   
  
Now that he has it he doesn't know what to do with it.  
  
Wardo lifts off him eventually, awkward in a way that's strange for his normally fluid, elegant body. Mark feels a drunken sort of urge to lift him at the ribs like a ballerina. He sees a trickle of his own come down Eduardo's thigh as Eduardo stands and he looks away. Sex is always difficult, after. Things look real in the quiet breathing and the light.  
  
Eduardo walks to the bed, slightly bow-legged, and sits down. He's still naked and he still doesn't look at Mark, elbows on his knees, shoulders hunched. He looks like a skinny Rodin thinker, all lines of emotive sinew.  
  
Mark pulls his knees up and sits against the side of the window, uncomfortably aware of the patches of stickiness around him. The glass is cool against the side of his thigh. He's facing away from Wardo, but he's extraordinarily aware of his presence.  
  
After a while he says, without looking backwards, "Why didn't you leave town?"  
  
He hears Eduardo give one of his little humorless laughs, a single breathy syllable. It's better than nothing, Mark thinks.  
  
There's a moment of silence and Mark looks back. Eduardo is shaking his head, still looking at his knees.   
  
"It just seemed like leaving was the last thing," he says quietly.   
  
"It was," Mark says.  
  
"After everything else, though…that was a big step, you know?"  
  
Yes, Mark knows. He knows he's imagined Wardo on his plane to Singapore a hundred times, imagined him staring out the window, eyes dark and sleepless. Mark looks away again, back out the window. Palo Alto's familiar expanse twinkles around him and he can see indistinct figures moving in the windows of the surrounding buildings. The sight makes him strangely happy. He's not an exhibitionist or anything, well, maybe he technically is now, but it's more the  _idea_  of him and Wardo. He wants the world to know about that.  
  
"Mark," Eduardo says, and Mark looks back. Eduardo's looking at him, meeting his eyes. "I don't regret it," he says clearly. "This." He gestures between them, his brow knit slightly.   
  
The first thing Mark thinks is that the word  _regret_  reminds him of a question he's asked himself over and over since the depositions ended. He hasn't found an answer yet, but he's starting to hope that Eduardo will give him the chance to. He's starting to believe it could happen.  
  
Then Eduardo's statement really catches up with him.  
  
"Me neither," he says blankly. How could he say anything else? He can see Eduardo's expression softening slightly, falling, but not in a way that's frightening.   
  
Mark gets up from the windowsill, stretches and crosses to Eduardo. He kneels in front of him, puts both hands lightly on his knees, then moves one to his elbow instead. Eduardo is looking down at him, and then he lifts his hands, slowly, watching them move, and sets them with the fingertips just overlapping Mark's against his thighs. They're both still naked and Mark wants to find this situation ridiculous but somehow his brain has gotten stuck in a mistier mode, one where sentimentality like he's never experienced shuts out cynicism.   
  
"I want you to stay," Mark says, forcing himself to maintain eye contact even though he's nearly terrified, so out of his element he's barely conscious of what he's doing.   
  
Eduardo's shaking his head slowly in low arcs side to side, but Mark doesn't think he's saying no. And he reaches up a hand and curls it around the back of Eduardo's neck and pulls him down and kisses him, chin tipped up, almost chaste and achingly perfect. In the back of his mind he thinks he'll have to remember to be proud of how he handled this, later. But right now all that matters is that he's kissing Eduardo. This is everything he needs to do.  
  
Eduardo's fingers are entwined with Mark's against his thigh. When they break apart he doesn't pull back, closing his eyes and leaning his nose into Mark's cheek in a way that says  _yes, yes, yes. I want to. I want to stay too._   
  
Mark supposes it could be hindsight, but he feels truly, even though it's absurd, that Dustin was right. This was inevitable – a certainty, that he should have Wardo again. He smiles very slightly against the side of Wardo's mouth, and then he kisses him again, just because there's no reason not to.


End file.
